


some boys don't listen at all

by bannanachan



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 11:12:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1426375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bannanachan/pseuds/bannanachan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dirk disappears from the Internet for three days, Jane decides to take desperate measures. But it turns out that there are some mysteries better left unsolved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blooper_boy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blooper_boy/gifts).



gutsyGumshoe [GG] began bothering timaeusTestified [TT]

GG: Yoo hoo! :B  
GG: You’re late!  
TT: Am I obliged to get online at the same time each day?  
GG: Well, no, but you usually do.  
GG: Were you busy with something?  
TT: Sawtooth had a screw loose. Literally, not figuratively.  
TT: Also I slept in late today.  
GG: Oh? That’s unusual. Are you feeling all right?  
TT: I’m fine. Just tired. Jeez, are minute changes to my schedule really worth that much fuss? I’m not a robot.  
TT: Really, I’m not. AR is shut off right now, promise.  
GG: Oh. Good to know. But why’d you shut him off?  
TT: Thought I should make a couple modifications to his program. Also, I’m sick to fucking death of him hijacking conversations with my friends without my notice, so.  
GG: Well I can’t say I don’t appreciate it!  
GG: Is Sawtooth okay now?  
TT: He’s functional, yeah. It was a minor fix. Screw loose, like I said.  
GG: That’s good. It must get pretty lonely out there when the robots aren’t working, since your brother’s gone so often.  
TT: Yeah, well. I’m used to it.  
GG: … Are you sure you’re okay, Dirk?  
TT: I’m fine. Just tired. Like I said.  
GG: Well, if you say so.  
GG: I just worry about you sometimes! What if something happened and there was no one there to take care of you?  
TT: You worry too much.  
TT: I’m fine, Jane. I take care of me.

***

Your name is Jane Crocker and you are pretty sure that Dirk Strider is incapable of taking care of himself.

Dirk Strider is capable of a great deal of things. Dirk is probably the most capable person you know. Dirk can build and program robots, rap, fight with a katana, and go off on ironic tangents the length of the Odyssey. But you’ve known him for six years, and you’ll believe Dirk capable of taking care of himself the day you believe that he and Roxy live in the future. And lately, that’s been worrying you.

It started with little things. Him sleeping in late, though unusual, wasn’t worth getting worried over. It just worried her when it happened every day for a week, and then two weeks. It started with his rants getting gradually a little shorter, and then a lot shorter, and then they were barely there at all. And he turned off AR, and he just didn’t seem to be acting normally. It started with that; it ended with Roxy chatting you at 3 AM begging you to talk some sense into him, because she couldn’t do it herself, and she was desperate.

It’s not like you didn’t know that Dirk hated himself. It didn’t take a lot of inference, and you’d had a lot of time. But he didn’t say it to you, either: it wasn’t as simple as that. You just sort of knew, and of course it made you sad to know, but there wasn’t much you could do about it. You didn’t know if it was that bad, anyway. Only Roxy said he’d been dodging conversations with her, to the point of just ignoring her messages, for a week. And you started to wonder if it was that bad.

And then he didn’t get online for three days.

You tried emailing, you tried calling, you tried chatting his empty username, maybe he put himself on invisible. You asked Roxy and Jake, and they said they didn’t know either. You found a fanmail email address for Dave Strider and left a message that you knew would probably just get read by an intern but it was better than nothing. But you didn’t hear back.

And he was alone and AR was off and if something happened, if he – if he did something – how would you even know, how could you even… could you stop it?

And then on the fourth day, he’s back, and everything’s fine except it’s not because you thought about it.

You do a Google search for what to do if you think an online friend is suicidal. The first hit tells you what to do on social media sites. The second one lists the number for a suicide hotline. But the most important thing to do is make sure that they don’t get left alone.

Dirk is always alone.

(How do you put someone you only talk to on the Internet on suicide watch?)

***

You decide you should just talk to him about it. Then you decide that’s a terrible idea, because oh my god, he’s never going to answer you: Dirk is the master of misdirection even when you’re not asking him about something personal, doesn’t matter how depressed he’s feeling, you would never get anywhere. You could get on a group chat with Roxy and Jake and all three of you by your powers combined would still get nowhere.

And then you get a response from Dave Strider.

_ms. crocker,_

_yo. good to hear from a friend of dirks. glad someone is looking out for him. kid gets lonely more than he lets on. id go check on him myself but doesnt look like i can fit it in the schedule right now._

_email me back when you hear back from him._

_-dave strider_

Less than two minutes later, Dirk messages you.

timaeusTestified [TT] began bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]

TT: Yo.  
TT: So. If you thought I was gonna kill myself, you could have just talked to me.

Oops.

GG: Did your brother call you?  
TT: He sent me a package. Sort of.  
TT: It was pretty obtusely ironic even for my tastes, but I think the general message under all the poorly compressed jpegs was something about believing in myself and not giving up.  
TT: Also, there was a note in there saying I should thank you for letting him know.  
GG: WHAT?  
GG: He couldn’t call but he sent you a package?!!!  
GG: WHAT KIND OF BROTHER JUST SENDS A PACKAGE WHEN HE THINKS HIS SIBLING MIGHT BE SUICIDAL?!!!  
GG: I DON’T CARE WHAT HIS SCHEDULE IS, THAT’S RIDICULOUS!  
TT: Woah. Okay, calm down.  
TT: It’s complicated. He’s a really busy guy, it’s not his bad.  
GG: I will not calm down!!!! It’s just not right!  
TT: Jesus, Jane. Would you just… I’m not killing myself, okay?  
TT: You’re overreacting. To a lot of things.  
GG: You disappeared for THREE DAYS, DIRK!  
GG: What was I supposed to think? What were WE supposed to think?  
GG: And how am I supposed to take your word for it when I know you’re depressed and you live a thousand miles away and my Dad won’t let me visit you and you’re all alone out there and your brother would rather send packages than fly home to visit you for once in his life?!!  
GG: I know you said you take care of yourself but you’re fourteen! How is that supposed to even work?!  
TT: That was a lot of questions.  
TT: If you would stop asking them for a few seconds, I might be able to get to answering a few.  
GG: Fine.  
TT: Okay, first of all, let me reiterate, it’s not Dave’s fault.  
TT: He’s really busy, like I said. He can’t just call me whenever he wants, unfortunately.  
TT: Second of all, you didn’t need to drag him into this. It’s just gonna worry him when he can’t do anything about it. He doesn’t need any more of that than he already has to deal with.  
GG: Of course he can do something about it! How can you say that so casually?  
TT: Trust me, he can’t.  
TT: And anyway, if you wanted to talk about it, you should have just gone straight to me.  
GG: Roxy said that. Although, to be fair, she didn’t do it either.  
TT: Christ, she was worrying about me too?  
GG: Yeah. Not Jake, though. He said it was poppycock. Insisted you were too smart for that.  
TT: Well, when the day has come that Jake English has better sense than the two of you put together, I guess…  
TT: Christ, Jane, I don’t know.  
TT: Why didn’t you just tell me? Really?  
GG: I was afraid you’d just avoid the conversation! Come on, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t have.  
TT: Yeah, I guess. It’s just… it doesn’t seem right.  
TT: Look, if something like this ever happens again, just talk to me, okay? I mean it. I won’t try to derail the conversation or whatever and even if I did, you can just get me back on it.  
TT: But you going over my head to talk to Dave just feels too weird.  
GG: Well, I’m sorry, then. But I had to do SOMETHING.  
TT: If you had talked to me about it I could have told you I was fine.  
GG: But you’re not!  
TT: Look, even if that’s true, there’s no way I’m going to kill myself. You can trust me on that.  
GG: How am I supposed to do that?  
TT:Because I promise. That’s going to have to be good enough, Jane.  
GG: …  
GG: Okay. I believe you.  
TT: Good. Because I don’t know if I could deal with you thinking that kind of shit about me.  
GG: But you are depressed. Aren’t you?  
GG: Why won’t you talk to us about it?  
TT: Without either confirming nor denying the possibility that I am depressed… it’s not really your shit to deal with, if it is a thing that is true at all.  
TT: You’re my friends and I appreciate the shit out of that, but that doesn’t mean you have anything to do with it. I wouldn’t ask you to, and believe me, you shouldn’t offer.  
GG: Without ever affirming or denying that I think you’re depressed AND a bad liar, that’s bonkers.  
GG: Why do you think like you have to be alone all the time?  
TT: I don’t.  
TT: Look, hypothetically, let’s say your right. What’s it matter? You still can’t do anything about it, can you? Talking about the problem won’t fix it.  
GG: It’s better than nothing.  
TT: It’s really not, Jane.  
TT: Look, I’ve got shit to do, all right? I’ll talk to you later.

timaeusTestified [TT] is no longer online!

***

You are so infuriated with both Striders that you bake for three hours before you are calm enough to write back to idiot the elder.

_Mr. Dave Strider,_

_What an honor to hear back personally from someone as famous as you are! I mean, setting aside the fact that I was emailing you about your brother’s serious case of suicidal ideation and you wrote back with a total of five sentences! (“Yo” is not a sentence, by the way!)_

_Dirk is alive. I wouldn’t say fine, given that whole suicidal ideation thing, but he’s definitely alive, for now! It would probably be a lot easier to make sure that that continues being a thing if someone were there to watch over him in person. Do you know if he has any family that aren’t Hollywood pricks? I’d go see him myself, but due to extenuating circumstances that you are no doubt aware of, I can’t travel without an armed guard of three._

_As much as I’d like to argue with you, I’d like Dirk to be all right more. Unfortunately, I have no actual ideas as to how to do that. I’m hoping that you might be able to get through to him better, since it seems I’ve failed miserably on that front._

_Sincerely,_

_Jane Crocker_

You read it over the next day and decide that you are being unnecessarily bitter, but you don’t care. The largest thing standing between Dirk Strider and happiness is his brother’s laziness, and you’re not really interested in being friendly.

***

_ms. crocker,_

_im going to be as honest with you as i can. realize that i do this fairly rarely. take that how you will. just take this seriously._

_there is literally nothing more i can do for dirk than what ive done already. i wish it was as simple as flying to austin and giving the poor kid a hug. i wish i could get him to go see a therapist or some shit. but i have reached the full extent of my abilities.  
i realize what an asshole i must look like to you right now. its a shame: you seem like a decent kid. i wouldve liked to make a better first impression on my bros best friend. guess thats the way the cookie crumbles._

_i dont think my brother is going to kill himself. theres too much left for him to do and he knows that. but i doubt very much he doesnt think about it._

_i cant make dirk happy. i dont think you can either. but i hope you will continue doing him the honor of being such a good friend. he deserves better. you both do. unfortunately i cant give it to you, but i think you can give it to yourselves if you work hard. just please take care of him for me as well as you can in the mean time._

_i know this must be confusing. sorry to ask so much of you._

_\- dave strider_

Your Dad says you were born a skeptic. You say that you earned it. Either way, it’s difficult for you to believe people without proof. It’s difficult for you to take someone at their word when you don’t understand why they’re saying what they’re saying. It’s more difficult when they’re specifically telling you you couldn’t possibly understand. But a good detective knows when the trail has run cold, and you know that Dave is not lying to you.

The worst thing is that you feel awful about it. Which is just crazy. Why should you feel guilty for acting on information that wasn’t even imperfect? Dirk is your friend, of course you’re protective, of course you’d be pissed off when his own damn brother wouldn’t give him a call when he was on the verge of suicide. You had a right to be pissed off. But instead, you were just sad.

You sit there at your computer staring at the email for five minutes before your chat lights up.

timaeusTestified [TT] began bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]

TT: Hey, Jane.  
TT: Are you there?

Well, crap.

TT: … Okay, look, you don’t have to reply. Just, hear me out.  
TT: I fucked up, and I’m sorry.  
TT: There was no reason for me to blow up at you like that when you were just trying to help me out, and I don’t have an excuse.  
TT: And I’m pretty pissed at myself, to be honest, but I know that that’s not what you would want. I’m trying not to be.  
TT: I’m sorry I tried to shut you out. And I appreciate your trying to help.  
TT: I just don’t want you to get wrapped up in this, because you really shouldn’t. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you I’m fine. But you shouldn’t try to intervene. I mean it.  
TT: At least not the way that you’ve been trying to.  
TT: I do want to be better, because I don’t want you to be sad, but…  
TT: I don’t know, Jane.  
TT: Would you at least just answer me?  
GG: I’m here, Dirk.  
TT: Oh. Well, shit.  
TT: Okay. Hi.  
GG: Hi.  
TT: So, uh.  
GG: It’s okay, Dirk.  
GG: I know you can’t just… stop feeling terrible about yourself, or anything like that. And I’m not even a little bit mad at you. I never was.  
TT: I don’t see why not, but okay.  
GG: Dirk, no.  
GG: Look, you… you really don’t need to apologize for hating yourself. That is… SO much a thing you don’t need to do.  
GG: If anyone needs to apologize, it’s me.  
GG: I pushed you too hard, and I went behind your back, and that was wrong, even if I was scared. I really should have talked to you.  
GG: I do trust you, Dirk. I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. I don’t think you can take care of yourself nearly as well as you think you can, but that doesn’t mean I don’t trust you.  
GG: You didn’t fuck up, or if you did, it’s okay anyway.  
GG: I just got so worried. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dirk.  
TT: Jesus. Okay, look.  
TT: If you say you trust me, does that mean you believe that I’m not going to kill myself?  
TT: Because I’ll own up to that I’m depressed, 100%. But I’d really like you to believe me about that.  
GG: Okay. Then I will.  
GG: I probably shouldn’t, but I’d rather believe that than not.  
GG: It’s not like my skepticism isn’t under siege anyway.  
TT: Wait, what?  
GG: Nothing.  
GG: Point is: I’m glad you’re okay, at least moderately so, and I’m sorry that I contacted your brother behind your back, and I’m sorry that I chewed him out, because he’s a lovely fellow, and I had no right to make assumptions about your life or his no matter what the evidence said.  
TT: … Okay, but again, what?  
GG: I talked to your brother. Again.  
GG: I’m so sorry, Dirk, I really didn’t mean to. I wasn’t trying to go behind your back this time, I just wanted to let him know you were okay but he replied and… I said some really terrible things to him, and now I just feel so guilty.  
TT: Uh. Maybe email him?  
TT: Look, you’re not just going behind my back if you told me about it.  
TT: Honestly, he could probably use the company. I’m not gonna get in your way if you want to play pen pals with my brother.  
TT: Just be careful about it, okay? He’s a nice guy, but there’s some things you shouldn’t stick your nose into.  
GG: Well… sure, if I have your permission.  
GG: Though I don’t know why you’re worried about me. I was the one who chewed him out, you know.  
TT: Yeah, I know.  
TT: Look, I’m okay. Well, I mean, I’m not really, but I’m not less okay than usual. If you want a minute to email Dave, take it.  
TT: I know you still want to talk, but it can wait. I’m always agreeable to putting off talking about my feelings, especially if you’ve got something better to be doing.  
GG: Are you sure?  
TT: I am 148% sure, and also not a robot. Go.  
GG: Okay. Love you, Dirk.  
TT: Okay. I love you too.

gutsyGumshoe [GG] stopped bothering timaeusTestified [TT]

You close your chat window and turn back to your browser. The email from Dave is staring you in the face and you think of a kicked dog. You take a deep breath, and write.

_Dear Mr. Strider,_

_I won’t pretend that I understand what you’re saying. I don’t want to lie to you, and I don’t think I could. But I do believe you, and I’m incredibly sorry that I didn’t before. I hope you can forgive me for that. I care about Dirk a great deal, and I hope that as someone who does the same you can understand where I was coming from._

_I talked to Dirk. I don’t think he’s going to kill himself either. I just wish there was more I could do. You asked me to take care of your brother, and I’m trying, but I don’t know what to do. Obviously I’ll always be his friend, but I know that’s not really enough. He’s wonderful, but he’s nowhere near as capable of taking care of himself as he thinks he is. And he's alone out there._

_I know you’re busy, but I hope I hear back from you. I know you probably don’t have any good advice, or you would have given it already, but any words of encouragement whatsoever would be appreciated._

_\- Jane Crocker_

Less than an hour later, you get a message back.

_jane,_

_be friendly, be as tolerant as possible of his bullshit, and don’t forget to talk to him._

_he loves you. you’re not gonna fuck it up._

_\- dave strider_

_p.s. thank you. i wish there was more i could do to express my gratitude, but i hope this will do. all the best._

You have no idea what he’s talking about, so you go back to talking to Dirk. A week later, a signed photo of Nick Offerman arrives for you in the mail. Enclosed is a note on which is written the following

_Jane,_

_D. Strider asked me to send this along to you. I don’t know him very well, but I know enough to believe that anyone he speaks as highly of as he does of you deserves a dozen of these._

_Best regards._

You tape the photo up above your bed and proclaim to your father that it is staying there forever. You email Dave back, but you never get a response.


	2. Chapter 2

You hear from Dave Strider one more time the day before the world ends.

“The day before” is relative, as Dirk would tell you later, as you’re sure Dave would have told you. They would never have lived through what they lived through if the world had ended in one day. Maybe it would have been better that way. Regardless, you get an email from him on November 10th, 2011.

_jane,_

_happy 15th birthday. hope you get what you want._

_if you see dirk tell him i say hi._

_\- dave strider_

You didn’t know what to say to that. So you didn’t say anything.

***

Your name is Jane Crocker, and your head hurts.

You’re hoping that this is a temporary side effect, and that the rest of your life will not be plagued by migraines as punishment for your teenage dalliances with mind-control. Then again, ‘the rest of your life’ might be about three days with the way things have been going, so it’s hard to say.

It could be more than that, too, and you tell yourself that when you start to really panic. You have all the ingredients for the recipe to turn out right. You’ve got a Forge, you’ve got a frog, a space player, a time player. You’ve even got a Matriorb, or Roxy promises you will soon anyway. Rose says that under any other circumstances, your party would probably be overpowered if anything; seven god-tier players and a vampire is nothing to sniff at. It helps, but not a lot. It’s not just Lord English that you’re panicking about, anyway. Or Aranea. Or the Baroness.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that meeting more screwed-up teenagers was probably going to do the opposite of improve your interpersonal politics. But none of your friends were Seers. Which may have been a good thing, considering how the Seers apparently turned out. You’ve barely talked to the trolls, with how protective they’ve been of each other. You’re not sure you even want to. As for your teen parents, John is still MIA and, per Rose’s recommendation, you’re waiting to revive Jade until it’s safe to do so, a plan that was agreed upon by almost everyone.

It is, of course, the almost that’s getting to you.

Dave is nothing like you expected. You don’t know what you expected. You didn’t actually expect anything. Dirk’s brother was not high on your list of thoughts for the last six months. But as soon as you saw him, it came back to you. And he’s not the one who sent you those messages, and he’s never met Nick Offerman, but you can’t shake the feeling that you know him anyway. Even though you didn’t know that Dave either. You can’t shake the feeling that you owe him something. Even though the best thing you could possibly do for him is probably to leave him alone. He obviously has enough on his plate as it is, and you don’t even know what you'd say to him.

It is therefore lucky for you that he starts the conversation.

“Hey, John’s hot mom… daughter.”

Two days clean of Jake English, you blush like a tomato, and he is nice enough, and Strider enough, to pretend he doesn’t notice.

“It’s Jane.” It’s all you can think to say.

“Yeah, uh, Jane. You feeling okay?” He asks, and nods to indicate your head, as if it wasn’t obvious what he meant the first time.”

“Yes! Yes.” You say abruptly. A conversation you once had with Jake replays in your head, and you take a step back. “Well. Mostly. I’ve got a headache, but – I mean, I could probably take care of it with Aspirin.”

Dave nods solemnly like he’s thinking about philosophy. “Right. Makes sense. Well, let me know if – I mean, let someone know, anyway. I’d say you should let Rose know but I think she’s kinda busy? But you should… you should probably take it easy.”

“Yeah, I… I’ll do that.” You say. You are both aware that the correlation between ‘taking it easy’ and ‘not being mind controlled’ is limited at best, but you appreciate the effort anyway.

An awkward silence falls upon your conversation, and you avoid Dave’s gaze, focusing intently on the campfire that you built up on LOFAF as a home base. Across it, Roxy’s mom is leaned in close to one of the trolls, heads bowed in conversation. They’re holding hands. You blush again.

Dave doesn’t move. You think he probably has something more to say, and you have a guess about what, but you don’t know how to get him to say it.

Instead, you say “I’m sorry.”

Dave perks up and looks at you, head a little askance. “You’re sorry for what, now?” He asks. “Because if it’s about the whole like, evil Batterwitch minion thing, you know you really don’t have to –”

“No!” You say. “No, I mean – well, yes, I do feel bad about that, but I know that’s not my fault, you don’t have to… I’m not really in the mood for a pep talk, Dave, but thanks anyway. No, that’s not what I’m sorry for. I just – I’m sorry, about your friend.”

“Oh.” Dave says, and shrugs. “Hey, look, don’t worry about it. Honestly, it’s probably for the best Egbert stays scarce until he figures out how to control his… weird timey thing. No clue how that thing works. Kinda freaks me out, gotta say. Maybe Aradia could explain it if she wasn’t neck-deep in corpses all the time, and also a crazy troll lady who lives in Lovecraftian space hell.”

“… Who’s Aradia?”

“The troll time player. Only met her a couple times. She’s pretty weird. Also god-tier, but I don’t think we’re gonna see her around here any time soon.”

You think Dave is almost as good as Dirk at getting off-topic too quickly for you to have any hope of getting back without a muzzle, but you let him do it anyway. Mostly because you’re too bewildered to do anything else, but also because if he takes after his brother in the slightest he knows you weren’t talking about John. And if that's the case there’s no way it’s getting addressed any time soon.

“That’s not… really what I wanted to say I was sorry for.” You say.

Dave scowls. “Can’t make up your mind, Crocker? We’ve only known each other for 14 hours, I don’t think you can be sorry for that much shit.”

You bite your lip. “Well, yes, but… not really, exactly.”

He raises an eyebrow above his shades, and you decide you’d better just go for it.

“I knew you.” You say. “The you in my universe. Not well, I mean – I just emailed you, him, a couple times, when something… well, it’s not important why, I guess. But I said some things I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t get to tell you – or him, sorry, not in person. So I wanted to tell you instead. You-you, I mean. And thank you, for what he did.”

He’s looking at you blankly, and you blush. “Sorry.” You mumble towards the ground. “I don’t… I know that doesn’t make any sense to you really. I mean, I know you’re not the same person, I just…”

“Are you really okay, Jane?”

You look up. Dave has his hands casually stuck in his pockets, and you can’t see a single thing behind his shades, but the line of his mouth – he really is worried about you. Dave is destined to kill Lord English, and probably die heroically when he does. Dave’s best friend is dead and his other best friend is missing; Dave’s sister is an alcoholic, Dave’s brother, as almost no one knows better than you, is a basket case. And Dave is worried about you.

You feel a blush spread through your face again, and you cover your cheeks with your hands. Your embarrassment only increases when you realize how corny that just was.

Dave chuckles. “See, this is what I’m worried about. You keep turning red. You sure you’ve flushed out all that cease reproduction junk?”

You are very, very sure that you have.

“I probably just need an Aspirin.” You say, and laugh nervously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't entirely know how I ended up writing a short bonus chapter of fluffy Dave/Jane to what was more or less a sadstuck fic, but here it is anyway, since I am trying to stop hoarding new content on accident.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 22nd birthday bloops! Well over a month late. WHOOPS.
> 
> Anyway, yeah, this would be the fanfiction that I wrote as a one-shot for [blooper-boy](blooper-boy.tumblr.com)'s birthday. She didn't actually ask for Dirk and Jane sadstuck, but that was kind of where it went. It hasn't really been beta'd yet? But I discovered how much fanfiction was sitting unpublished on my harddrive and decided that I should probably just post it already.
> 
> There's a really good chance that this will get a second chapter some time soonish, so look out for that.
> 
> Title is from "Some Boys" by Death Cab for Cutie.


End file.
